It is my pleasure to send the comments on the paper on Food Losses and Waste in the Context of Sustainable Food System as a participant of HLPE as well as subject of my profession. The comments are as follows:
1) The major obstacles in the least developed countries like Nepal is the lack of infrastructure. This has not only lead to huge amount of food losses during the distribution channel but also resulted in serious health problems. Poor refrigeration system with interrupted electricity, poor road facilities, poor capacity of farmers on hygiene and sanitation has made the entrepreneur huge loss of perishable food products like milk and meat products.
2) The over use and misuse of pesticides in order to protect them from the possible damage of pests has resulted the pollution of the whole agro-ecosystem and the consumption of such vegetables has resulted in public health problem. The case studies on Total Diet Study (TDS- Pesticide Residues) reported that the contamination of pesticide residues in fresh vegetables were higher than other food crops.
In the media coverage, the farmers usual dump the left over vegetables instead of feeding to animals due to excessive use of pesticides.
3) The focus has to be given to the awareness and education programs in order to make people aware on food and nutrition security as well as food safety issues.
For example in the mountainous districts of Nepal, the availability of locally produced crops and tubers and fruits and vegetable should be optimally used as food basket in reducing hunger problem rather than providing subsidy in imported rice. So the subsidy policy should be revised to encourage the utilization of local production.
4) Another important thing is the stamping the expiry date on several processed food without proper research about their shelf life. It made the regulatory body to destroy the food product, may be prior to the real consumable period. So the provision for expiry date has to be revised or enforced scientifically.
5) The joint monitoring of different regulatory agencies seize the suspicious food products from food market and industry and dump, dispose, burn without taking consideration of food losses and environmental protection.
6) Excessive use of food products in feast and festival results in huge loss of food products.
7) The regulatory body use to dump and dispose the food products of small food services due to poor hygiene and sanitation.
Recommendation: The policy and regulation need to be address on food loss and waste. There are need of adequate awareness program on food safety, hygiene and consumption pattern.
Jiwan Prava Lama